Sermon on Colossians 3:18-4:1
by Will Briggs, from February 14, 2010
Paul is applying the gospel to the community of believers to the church in Colossae urging them to live according to their new identity in Christ. Here that application is specifically for the household – husband-wife, parents-child, masters-servants.
The husband-wife relationship is based on the framework of an equal-but-different harmony of voices. In this framework the exhortation to submission is a life-giving exhortation matched by the exhortation to self-sacrificial love by the husbands. Any negative or misogynistic use of this verse is a misuse.
The framework of obedience for children is to teach them how to be child-like towards God in obedience as adults.
The slave-master application is less relevant but the principle of doing whatever you do as to the Lord applies in a work lives.
Paul is applying the gospel to the community of believers to the church in Colossae urging them to live according to their new identity in Christ.
Here that application is specifically for the household – husband-wife, parents-child, masters-servants.
The husband-wife relationship is based on the framework of an equal-but-different harmony of voices.
In this framework the exhortation to submission is a life-giving exhortation matched by the exhortation to self-sacrificial love by the husbands.
Any negative or misogynistic use of this verse is a misuse.
The framework of obedience for children is to teach them how to be child-like towards God in obedience as adults.
The slave-master application is less relevant but the principle of doing whatever you do as to the Lord applies in a work lives.